Daily Archives: January 18, 2016

Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi is a biography of Noguchi, sculptor and designer of gardens, furniture, and more. I find biographies challenging to read, as lives often proceed like DNA, with lots of junk between interesting genes, and this one was no exception, even with a remarkable subject. I thought that his childhood story to be very intriguing: his American mother abandoned while pregnant by his Japanese father, who took only a very small interest in him (and her), his being sent alone, age 13, from Japan to a US boarding school, and his deciding, after high school, to pursue education outside a conventional academic education. Another aspect of his life that the author explains well is his continuous, and successful search to renew himself, all the way into old age. If you can endure the multiple moves from continent to continenent, the many love affairs and, once he got successful, his bossing around everyone around him, you will do well with the “junk” pieces too.